"All you're left with is a plaid thermos..." the wolfman

I am still quite giddy about the Cyclocross World Championships coming to Kentucky in 2013 and Master’s Worlds in 2012. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m already making plans to attend and have adjusted my training plan to arrive at a super-peak in 2012. The Service Course blog has taken his logistical preparation further than I have. He broke down the many reasons why Louisville got the nod from the UCI. Apparently it has to do with Waffle Houses, horse meat and bourbon. Lucky for me I like all three.

Yesterday was my first day at Velonation and I continue to be pumped about the opportunity! They are a bunch of incredibly hard working guys and I predict great things for the site. I’ll be posting stories Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Check it out Tuesday, Thursdays,  Saturday and Sunday as well.

One correction from yesterday. In my haste to post late breaking news regarding Tom Boonen and his search for a sofa in the south of France to surf on, the link I posted went to the Mobile App page. My bad. Here’s the link to the Boonen story. Remember I am not endorsing or promoting Boonen staying at your place. I’m only reporting what I read.

The official Lion of Flanders

This past weekend the cyclocross world championships were held in the Czech Republic. In a sport dominated by Belgians it was not surprising to see the Lion of Flanders flag throughout the course, at times practically draped across the course forcing riders to almost ride through the symbol of the Flemish. This weekend at a party I was once again reminded of the flag as the host had a Lion of Flanders flag autographed by the Lion of Flanders himself, Johan Museeuw. As fans of cycling we all know this iconic image: a black lion with red claws and tongue on a yellow background. However, as with all flags there is a symbolism behind the Lion of Flanders.

There are two different types of Lion of Flanders flags and as a fan of cycling you want to make sure you buy the correct version. The lion with the red claws and tongue is the flag that is most commonly seen flying at races. However, don’t mix this up with the all black lion. This all black Lion of Flanders is a symbol of a separatist movement of Flanders that wants to remove itself from the Belgian government. From here the symbolism of the all black lion gets murkier depending on who you talk to. This all black lion is associated with a right-wing political groups and if you wave it around indiscriminately you could be headed for a rather heated political discussion that you want no part of. Today, the red claw and tongue lion is the official Lion of Flanders, but occasionally the all black lion is also used in conjunction with the “official” Lion of Flanders.

This version is associated with the Flemish separatist movement

To understand the Lion of Flanders requires a brief lesson on Belgium. The country is basically split into two distinct areas: the northern Flemish who speak Dutch and in the south the Wallons who speak French. Tensions between these two groups occasionally flares up and until 1967 the Belgian constitution was still not translated from French into Dutch, giving the impression to the Flemish that the Dutch speakers were second class citizens. When I traveled to Roubaix, I cheered “Go Belgium” to a bunch of Lion of Flanders waving fans. I was told rather bruskly that they were not Belgian but Flemish. Whoops, my bad, and I quickly slunk away before they decided to hang me from the flag. Just to muddy the explanation more there is another term used almost interchangeably – Flandrien which is a derogatory term for the people from the north of France. There was a lot of poverty in these areas at the beginning of the 20th century and the people from Flanders went to work in northern France. The French thought they were taking jobs away from their own people and sarcastically called them “les Flanderiens”. These Flanderiens were stereotypically considered hard workers. This term was picked up and romanticized to describe the Flemish cyclists. So when you are in Belgium and you spot the roadside vendor on the Muir you now know which version of the Lion of Flanders flag to spend your Euros on. Oh, and pick me up one as well.

Get your Lion of Flanders gear here

Poster of Belgium’s most famous one-day race – The Rhonde aka Tour of Flanders

Johnson is pumped for Tibor ("It's going to be a shit show") and Kentucky

With the lack of racing this week I’ve had to make do with news of race announcements, race cancellations, team announcements, doping allegations, very creative graphs and of course new electronic gadgets to lust over. So yeah, it was a full week for me.

First off we’d been hearing rumbling earlier this week that the UCI had Louisville, Kentucky on the short list for the cyclocross world championships for 2013. Louisville and particularly the U.S. Gran Prix of Cyclocross have a good reputation of promoting and running a high-level race. I attended the November USGP in New Jersey a couple of months ago. It seemed well run but I can’t be sure, we were all pretty drunk for most of that weekend. Tim Johnson Skyped me yesterday from Tabor, just prior to going to diner (and massage) to tell me how pumped he was about the race being awarded to Louisville. This will give the sport of cyclocross some legitimacy here in the States and hopefully a wake-up call to USA Cycling that they need to throw some dollars at this discipline. As a warm up the UCI also granted Louisville the Master’s Cyclocross World Championships in 2012. I’m planning on being there and probably mostly sober. I’m told that the Louisville Park and Recreation Department is planning on building a cyclocross park. How cool is that? I say take a hunk of property and make a BMX track, cross course and a velodrome. At least that’s what I’m going to do when I win the lottery and I’ll name it The Browne Eye Sporting Complex.

And speaking of rumblings, I’d been hearing for a while about the formation of a cycling team with Yahoo as the title sponsor. With ex-Rock Racing rider Haldane Morris directing, this northern California based team is an elite amateur squad. I was far too optimistic and hoped it was going to be a pro team. Morris wants to take the team to a professional level, unfortunately half of his squad is over 30 and two of those riders are over 40. Those older guys would need to be jettisoned like used water bottles in order to satisfy the UCI’s rule on the average rider age of a team. Also there’s the fact that Yahoo, the company, hasn’t had that great of a 2009. While I like the idea of an elite team being formed with a well known company as a title sponsor, I’m not so excited seeing that half the team are master racers. We need to develop young riders, not guys who are still living the 12k dream.

This is why there's no TT up Paris Mountain - 28 degrees and snow

One race cancellation that hit me hard personally was the Paris Mountain time trial here in Greenville. Apparently there was a very strong chance of snow, ice and rain putting the race into the Jens Factor 5 zone. So for safety’s sake the time trial was postponed till March. I had been planning for weeks to make a run at my personal best up the hill. I had been doing interval training and marking off timing landmarks on the 2.2 mile road (at the halfway point where the road slightly levels off I had hoped to be at 5:50). Now I’ll be reduced to training indoors. However I have a great excuse to try out an indoor training video from Suffer Fest. They sent me a copy of Fight Club and I’ll let you know how that does, but I can guess it will be ugly.

Speaking of weather, as a very-recently-former Californian I am still wrapping my head around the fact that there is adverse weather conditions. And by adverse I mean the temperature drops below 60 degrees. But like a cockroach I have adapted and survived in the often inhospitable 40 degree temperatures that I’ve been reduced to riding in. But to make sure I’m not riding in too inhospitable weather conditions I consult my Jens Factor chart from the Cyclocosm site. Cyclocosm designed a graph that tells you what factor of climatic hell you are about to ride in and how you should dress. This chart is so important that I have created a spot on my training log to record what Jens Factor I rode in. As someone who has had his fair share of chemistry classes and is a well known bike dork, I’m mad at myself for not creating the Periodic Table of Professional Cycling that Cyclocosm also created. He has taken all the major, and not so major races, and broke them down into the periodic table with the three Grand Tours at the top going all the way down to races no longer on the race calendar such as the Tour de Georgia. Do yourself a favor and don’t waste your time printing them. Just go to his site, purchase the posters or a shirt and fly your bike dork flag proudly.

Don't they make a cute couple?

Not too shocking is that Riccardo Ricco’s girlfriend, recent mom and second place finisher in the Italian cyclocross national championships, Vania Rossi was popped for CERA. Ricco was all set to return to professional cycling on the Flaminia team, but I have to be thinking that the team is going to unleash the lawyers and get rid of Ricco before it’s too late. I can’t wait to hear some kind of public statement from either one of them. “She was doing what? I had no idea what those viles in the fridge were for. I assumed it was breast milk!” My career advice would be for Ricco to return to teaching Spin classes to cougars and not ride a bike professionally. Ever.

Finally the biggest hype of the week goes to Apple for their launch of the iPad. I won’t even go into the well publicized fact that they couldn’t have chosen a worse name for a product. Regardless, it won’t do flash, it isn’t a phone, has no USB or HDMI ports, no camera, no multi-tasking and yet I still want one. Damn you Apple hype machine!

LATE BREAKING NEWS:

Well I said it was going to happen and it did, Tom Zirbel’s “B” sample came back positive for DHEA. Tom says on his own blog, “There will probably be a hearing in a few months whereas I will proclaim my innocence. We all know the drill! How many times have we been through this with this sport? I even secured one of those lawyer fellas to help me through this. We are still attempting to figure out how this happened and I’m optimistic that we’ll have an answer in time for the hearing.” Unfortunately we do know the drill. I hope Tom can mount some kind of defense and explain how it happened, but he’s done.

Vania Rossi issued a public statement regarding her positive for CERA! “I’ve never taken banned substances and I especially haven’t done it now because I’m a mum and I’ve been breast feeding my baby boy since last July.” Apparently she’s going with the tried and not so true, ‘Just had a baby so no way would I take anything to harm my child’ defense. All I know is get an eye on that kid when he gets older. He’s going to kick ass!

Team Cannondale/Cyclocrossworld.com entered the weekend of the United States Cyclocross National Championships as three of the favorites in an Elite Men’s race that featured one of the deepest talent pools of all time. The team came in with high expectations heaped upon them after finishing up the regular season with twenty-one wins as well as the overall victory in the North American Cyclocross Trophy series. All of their prior results would go out the window, however, when Johnson, Powers and Driscoll hit the line for one last time in America.

It did not take Cannondale/Cyclocrossworld.com long after the starter’s gun fired to open up the throttle. As has been his trademark all season, Jeremy Powers grabbed the holeshot and shifted the pressure onto his rivals. “I wanted to take off from the beginning,” said Powers. “I saw in the earlier races that that was the way to go. I saw guys taking off and holding on to the race, so that’s the plan I wanted to follow.” Powers quickly opened up a gap over an elite chase group that quickly formed behind. As Johnson bided his time, waiting patiently for the right time to strike, the chasing was left to Jonathan Page (Planet Bike) and Ryan Trebon (Kona/FSA). Just behind, Jamey Driscoll was working his way through the field, closing in on the action at the front. The team’s tactics allowed Powers’ gap to extend, as Powers continued to press his early advantage. Jonathan Page was first to exit the chase group, as he headed to the pits to grab a bike with better tire pressures.

Noting the absence of one of his rivals, Johnson decided the time was right to open up his race, inching both closer to Powers and away from Trebon. Before long, Johnson’s pace had pulled him up to Powers’ wheel, and Cannondale/Cyclocrossworld.com was firmly in the driver’s seat of the biggest race of the season. Johnson made sure that when he got to Powers, he did so alone. “There was very little drafting out there, so when I went across to Jeremy, I went across clean, and there wasn’t really any pulling going on at that point.” Not far behind, Driscoll was hard at work keeping tabs on Page and Todd Wells (Specialized), ensuring that the dangerous pairing did not make inroads into his teammates’ advantage. “I rode a pretty smart race and went as hard as I possibly could. I’m pretty pleased with how I did,” said Driscoll of his day.

Powers was having the best Nationals ride of his career, and looked like the only man who could challenge Johnson for the title. Disaster struck midway through the race, when a slick, off-camber corner sent Powers to the ground, allowing Johnson and Trebon to ride away and battle for victory. Powers, however, was determined not to let the crash faze him, as he remounted and charged off to salvage his day. “On that course, 15 seconds was an eternity. I left it all out there, and I know other guys did too.” Powers found Driscoll for company, fighting amongst Page and Wells for the final podium spot. A trip to the pits to switch back to his original bike for Powers, and accelerations by a resurgent Page and Wells saw Powers and Driscoll left to fight for fifth. Driscoll and Powers remained together for much of the race, with only a sprint for the line separating the two. “We were both trying as hard as we possibly could,” said Driscoll of racing with Powers. “We were racing our brains out because it’s the National Championships, and that’s what you do.” Powers managed to out kick Driscoll, finishing his day in fifth, with only meters separating Driscoll in sixth.

Up ahead, Johnson had eked out a four second advantage over Trebon, and had lost himself in the task of holding off the motivated Bend native. Johnson’s only goal for the remainder of the race was to ride as smoothly and safely as possible while keeping himself and the rest of the field at bay. “I really just kept my head down and tried to steer my own bike, and not really think about anything else.” As the laps melted away, Johnson was able to extend his lead little by little, but the race never looked as it had a clear winner. “If you got too out of control or too aggressive, you’d pay for it by dabbing or crashing. I kept an eye on the field and I knew that if I got a little bit of a gap and was going as fast as I could, the chances of holding on got better.”

Behind, Powers’ sprint for fifth place matched his best ever finish at the National Championships, but the manner in which Powers animated the first half of the race speaks volumes to both Powers’ ability and his potential. “I’m happy that I was able to throw down, and give myself an opportunity to win. We rode strong all year and it’s a great way to cap the year.” Driscoll’s sixth place finish, too, signals that the best things are yet to come for the young man from Vermont. Finishing the day in first, fifth and sixth met and far exceeded the expectations put on team Cannondale/Cyclocrossworld.com.

The twenty-five seconds that stands as Johnson’s victory margin does not tell the story of how hard Trebon pushed Johnson throughout the race. In the end, however, Johnson emerged with his third Elite Men’s United States Cyclocross National Championship – adding to the Elite titles he won in Kansas City in 2000 and 2007 – and his sixth National Title overall – having won Espoirs titles in Fort Devens, Massachusetts in 1998 and Presido, California in 1999, as well as a Junior title in 1995 in Leicester, Massachusetts.

Johnson described the win among the biggest of his career thus far, saying, “I’d say this win ranks at number one, maybe number two. In 2007, I only got the lead with one lap to go, but this one I led for so long. The longer you lead, the more chance you have to lose it, so it was pretty exciting to be able to hold on for that long. I was thinking this morning that I didn’t want to get too nervous, because I realize just what it feels like. All I wanted to do was give myself the opportunity to win.” Johnson will not be satisfied to end his season with his Nationals victory, and will now turn his sights to the year’s biggest goal: a top ten finish at the UCI Cyclocross World Championships in Tabor, Czech Republic on January 31. “I want to be top ten at Worlds, and that’s not going to change. The course is pretty similar to this weekend, and I think if I’ve got some good training, I’ll be in a good position.”

All three Cannondale/Cyclocrossworld.com team members will head across the Atlantic this week, arriving in Belgium on Thursday. Jamey Driscoll will be the first of the team to open up his European campaign at the season’s next World Cup in Kalmthout, Belgium on December 20th. Shortly thereafter, Powers will join Driscoll in the European peloton at the Noordzeecross in Middelkerke, Belgium on December 23rd. Johnson will take some time away from racing and put in a hard training block before heading to Europe on January 20, tackling the World Cup in Hoogerheide, the Netherlands on January 24 to begin his European season.

In an effort to decompress from my traveling and to get back into a better frame of mind I have thrown myself into cross training. And much like Silas who flailed himself to find some sort of inner peace, I am flogging myself, but with exercise. While I have been taking Pilates for a couple of years with a trainer, I have now started doing additional Pilates routines in my living room. Also I have laced up my running shoes and am clomping around my neighborhood in what might be generously called running. The motivation behind the compulsion? An effort to have a decent ‘cross season before I have to travel again.

A descent trail to train and test a ‘cross bike is the Fullerton Loop in Orange County. The Loop winds throughout Fullerton and is not particularly technical or rough enough to warrant suspension. But it is hard enough to get the endorphins pumping. And in the middle of the week it’s not too populated with locals walking, so I can hit the gas and rip through turns and power over the short inclines that the Loop has to offer. But before hitting the Loop I wanted to stop by a new-ish shop off Harbor Boulevard in downtown Fullerton, Banning’s Bikes. The buzz about the shop had crossed the Orange Curtain and reached me deep in L.A. county, so I thought I should check it out. Definitely a high-end shop. Felt, Colnago and Pinarello bikes take up the floor space, as do the required accoutrements that make up our sport. But the cherry on top is the espresso machine and the black sofa facing a wall mounted tv which was playing race videos. So if you are in the Fullerton area stop by and enjoy an espresso, relax on the sofa and watch a video. I did.

So after a successful ‘cross session on the Fullerton Loop, followed by a run, I’m home, sore from the waist down and wondering if my self flagellation will help clear my mind and keep those endorphines pumping.

Ducati carbon fiber bikes for those who want to match their motorcycle

It’s easy to kick back and forget about training on this sofa